We’d like to tell you about a band formed in New York’s East Village in the mid-’80s. Nope, it’s not the Tom Tom Club. Try The Klezmetics, a clarinet-rich, accordion-heavy, Grammy-winning klezmer band. It’s collaborated with Itzhak Perlman and Ben Folds Five, and a recent album fuses Yiddish tunes with Woody Guthrie. The band is also the subject of a documentary, The Klezmetics: On Holy Ground, that is the climax of this year’s Miami Jewish Film Festival. The director will appear at Wednesday’s screening at Regal Cinemas South Beach 18, which is followed by a klezmer jam afterparty at [email protected] (137 NE 19th St., Miami). The festival opens this Saturday at Bill Cosford Cinema with an 8:30 p.m. screening of The Yankles, a film about an ex-ball player who has to coach a bunch of Yeshiva students as community service. Another festival highlight is Protektor, Israel’s submission to the Best Foreign Language Film category of the Academy Awards, and the winner of the Krzysztof Kieslowski Award at the Denver International Film Festival. Described as visually stunning, the noir tale follows a husband and wife in Prague just before German occupation in 1938. The 14th annual CAJE Miami Jewish Film Festival runs Saturday through January 30 at Bill Cosford Cinema, Regal Cinema South Beach, and Sunrise Cinema Intracoastal Mall.
Sat., Jan. 22, 8:30 p.m., 2011